Transcript: Wally Johnson on Confirming William Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court

Wally Johnson managed the confirmation processes of Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court

Jonathan Movroydis: Welcome to the Nixon Now podcast. I’m Jonathan Movroydis. This is brought to you by the Nixon Foundation. We’re broadcasting from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California. You can follow us at nixonfoundation.org or on Twitter, @nixonfoundation.

This week, hearings in the U.S. Senate began for Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Today, we look back at the justices President Nixon appointed for the highest court and the challenges they faced in their confirmation process.

Our guest today successfully shepherded through arguably one of the most consequential nominees in the past half-century, Justice William Rehnquist. He did this not once but twice when Justice Rehnquist became associate justice in 1971, and again, when he became Chief Justice in 1986.

Wally Johnson began his career as special attorney in the organized crime section of the criminal division at the Department of Justice, ultimately leading the Organized Crime Task Force in Miami. He went on to become minority counsel of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on criminal laws and procedures under ranking minority member, Senator Roman Hruska.

In 1970, he was appointed by Attorney General John Mitchell as associate attorney general responsible for managing the Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist confirmations before the Senate judiciary committee. From 1972 to 1973, he served in the White House in the vaunted congressional liaison office. And then from 1973 to 1975, Johnson served as assistant attorney general for and natural resources. Today he remains a successful lawyer living in Cody, Wyoming. Wally Johnson, welcome.

Wally Johnson: Well, it’s good to be with you. These are exciting times.

Jonathan Movroydis: I’ll say, how did you…I just wanted to start at, how did you come to join the Justice Department and become a liaison for congressional affairs, both at Justice and at the White House? Can you just give me kind of an idea of your background?

Wally Johnson: I was hired into the Justice Department Honours Graduate Program where the Justice Department hires from the top 20% of certain law schools around the country. I was hired into the criminal division back in 1965. And when I went in and met with the administrative officer, he said we have several sections here. We have a fraud section and we have an organized crime section.

And he said, if you’re in organized crime, you’re gonna travel. Well, the organized crime section was a derivative of the Kennedy-Hoffa Squad which many people will remember was attorney general Kennedy’s highest priority issue while he was attorney general.

And I started as an organized crime section attorney, went down to Miami, ended up as the chief of the organized crime strike force down there. And when Mr. Nixon was elected in 1968, what happens almost certainly with every transition in government is many of the smart young people up on the hill go into the administration, I went the other way.

I went from being in the department up to work on the Senate Criminal Law Subcommittee where we processed the Organized Crime and Racketeering Act of 1970, a high priority for Mr. Nixon. And then after a year on the hill, came back into the Justice Department in charge of the legislated section, and I was an associate deputy attorney general, which means essentially that I was an adjunct to Deputy Attorney General.

He had three associate deputies then and one of the first things that happened for and with me then is that Rehnquist and Powell were named to the court and John Mitchell called me, who was the attorney general, and said, and I still remember this because there was a big bong on my phone that rang when the attorney general was calling. “Bill needs an attorney.” And I became directly involved in that activity with that telephone call.

As it turned out, Bill Rehnquist had been managing the prior four appointments. You’ll remember that Mr. Nixon in his memoirs said, one of the most significant and proudest things he did was to name four members to the Supreme Court: Berger, Blackmun, Rehnquist, and Powell, and we’re seeing that same mindset play out in more contemporary appointments. So that’s a brief overview in how I got involved.

Jonathan Movroydis: What attracted you to working in the Nixon, Mitchell Justice Department?

Wally Johnson: Well, there are two ways to answer that. On one hand, I’m a product of the Justice Department, and it’s the biggest law firm in the world and has the most prestigious client. So, many, many bright young attorneys are attracted into the Department of Justice in the Honours Program as a way in which the department is able to compensate them consistent with competitive salaries with other opportunities like other major law firms. So, I’m naturally attracted to the Justice Department. The other interesting piece of it, I’m a great admirer of John Mitchell.

John Mitchell was like the prime minister. There was excitement around the Department of Justice and the excitement came from working around people who were attracted to work on the major issues of the day. Remember, Nixon was elected in ’68 based on his desire to or based on a law and order plank and based on his pledge to end the Vietnam War.

So where are you gonna deal with the law and order plank? You’re gonna do it in the Department of Justice. So, that’s why it was such an exciting time for me. I think of those 10 years I was in Washington from ’65 through ’75 as my golden years. They were exciting times, they were a smart, dedicated people with whom I was working, and we were making a difference.

Jonathan Movroydis: Going to judges now, when Nixon came into office in ’68, did he have a judicial philosophy? And let me kind of add on to that. Today, you know, you often hear about the federal society and how President Trump has picked from the list of judges that the Steven Calabresi and The Federal Society gave him to choose from. Did Nixon, did President Nixon come in with a certain judicial philosophy like originalism in 1968? Was that even on the mind of more Republican or conservative-leaning lawyers?

Wally Johnson: Not to my knowledge, but let me put this in perspective if I can. The story that is playing out in the Senate today, and this is the second day of cardinal hearings, began in the mid-1950s with President Eisenhower.

President Eisenhower appointed two, what he thought were outstanding nominees to the Supreme Court, both of them let him down. One was Earl Warren. What happened between the mid-1950s and 1968 is that Warren showed us true colors in the sense that he moved the court as Chief Justice to a very liberal-leaning position.

Bill Douglas was on the court, Abe Fortas was on the court, Hugo Black was on the court. And there were a number of decisions, one of which I heard discussed this morning in the Kavanaugh hearings on television, the Miranda decision. And they were viewed as anti-law enforcement. So, all of a sudden, the court became an issue and Nixon pledged in the campaign to change the approach taken by the Supreme Court.

To my knowledge, there were interest groups but there were certainly no dominant interest groups. And as I have read and learned and know about the process of selection because there’s an awful lot that’s been written about it, it was more ad-hoc he and the attorney general, John Ehrlichman was usually involved, would find their way to qualifying nominees.

And that’s how we come to a point where…and I think Rehnquist was almost an afterthought as a nominee but was possibly his most significant appointee. And he and John Mitchell were working hand and glove on selecting them.

There were a whole plethora of people that were submitted, two of whom didn’t make it. If you look at the hearings, you’ll see that there are many young staff people working behind the senators. Back in 1968 and ’69, I was one of those and worked with staff people from Senator Kennedy and Senator Hart.

There were a number of very liberal senators, and they had very qualified staff people. June Ploog [SP] is one of them, Ben Wise is another one. And I can still remember that we were working very, very collaboratively but we had different goals in mind in terms of how we were supporting the staff. So I was there on Haynesworth and Carswell, but one of those faces behind the senators.

Jonathan Movroydis: Right, with the whole selection process and vetting process of potential Supreme Court nominees, it was interesting, in 2005 when Chief Justice Roberts was selected, it was almost as if the Bush administration wanted to choose the cleanest nominee possible, not only in terms of his own personal reputation but also his…the opinions that he gave before the Supreme Court. And also the public relations skills, a lot of times, of a judicial nominee comes into play as well.

This is specifically the case after the whole…in the 1980s when Judge Robert Bork was, for lack of a better term, borked and had to withdraw his name from the…or was blocked from even becoming a Supreme Court justice. What was the political climate of the late 1960s, early 1970s when the justices…you helped get through Powell and Rehnquist? Was it as divisive as the 1980s or even today in the Kavanaugh hearings?

Wally Johnson: Well, the short answer is no, and I can explain why. I’d like to answer the question by calling attention to the fact that when John J. was named Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, he was named, two days later, he was confirmed, and two days after that, he was on the bench without any dissent, without any real attention.

So we’ve gone through in the confirmation process, we’re looking at evolution which follows the culture and follows the political climate in which we live. I heard Senator Graham this morning say to the nominee, “Tell your children,” and this isn’t the exact quote, “Tell your children not to be discouraged, it’s the climate in which we live.”

The climate in which we lived in 1968 through ’75 was where there was an evolution of political attitudes among the states in such a way that while there were only about 35 Republicans in the Senate, there were closer to 60 conservatives in the Senate.

So we’re looking at a situation, Johnathan, where the philosophic base was very strong but the partisan political base was not as refined. And what we’ve seen over the last 40 to 50 years is an evolution where two things are working in opposite. One is the political base is becoming more clear, focused, but the partisan base is so locked in that it’s hard for them to actually show their support anymore for a candidate the way we were able to do back in that era with President Nixon.

So when Rehnquist was confirmed just to put an end to this part of the conversation, we only had 32, 33 Republicans because there were 2 Easterners that were more liberal but we had all those Southerners built around James Eastland who was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee from Mississippi, and they were as solid behind the president as anything you’d ever want to find.

So we had a coalition that was built in support of justice and then Chief Justice Rehnquist. The reality is that but for tying him together with Lewis Powell who was from Richmond Road, Virginia, he probably would have dangled forever and not been confirmed because he was young, and he was brilliant. And the partisan Democrats did not want him.

And they could have used the tools of the Senate to block him, but we were able to take advantage of the reality that Justice Powell was well-liked and loved and a very distinguished legal person to help push Rehnquist through.

Jonathan Movroydis: Going into each of the nominees, just kind of their profiles, and I’ll start off with Justice Lewis Powell. Who was Lewis Powell?

Wally Johnson: I remember him well. But I only got to know him during the confirmation process. He was a perfect gentleman. If you ask me who was Lewis Powell, I’d say he was a perfect gentleman, but he was clearly more than that. He was the President of the American Bar Association. He was active in the profession, he had a great academic record, and he was a partner in a major Virginia law firm.

So, he was a candidate that had been approached any number of times because I know Nixon was to have been looking for a Southerner. That’s where things went caterwaul with Carswell and Haynesworth. But with Powell, he was able to find that perfect candidate and Powell agreed at the last minute, but maybe not, that’s not the right way to say it. He agreed after much personal anguish to be nominated, and he was a very good justice. More moderate than Rehnquist proved to be but a perfect gentleman. As it turned out…

Jonathan Movroydis: I’m sorry, go ahead.

Wally Johnson: …Rehnquist was nominated before him, so in the cycle of things to get to Powell, the Senate had to deal with Rehnquist, and that was one of the benefits of having the chairman of the Judiciary Committee supporting your candidates.

Jonathan Movroydis: You had mentioned Rehnquist’s youth and brilliance. Can you give us an idea of what his background…you know, how did he go so high at the Department of Justice at such a young age, and how did he really sharpen up his scholarship?

Wally Johnson: Well, he was the assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. And for those of your listeners who may not understand the structure of the department, the Office of Legal Counsel is just what it says it is. It wrote opinions analyzing the legal actions of the Present of the United States. So, whenever Bill, whenever a nominee was appointed, the guy that vetted the nominee was Bill Rehnquist.

And I can still remember Bill who had a bad back even at his young age, and I’m approaching almost twice that age now, he would sit in a recliner surrounded by law books. But he came there because…first of all, he graduated from Stanford, and he was at the top of this class. Coincidently, met Sandra Day O’Connor there, and they were friends for life.

But he ended up practicing mostly appellate law in Phoenix. And he would receive case referrals from other lawyers and he was a very good appellate lawyer, but he was also involved politically in political activities and Dick Kleindienst who ended up as a deputy attorney general, subsequently attorney general, championed his appointment with John Mitchell during the transition discussions up in New York.

So, Rehnquist patron was Dick Kleindienst and John Mitchell became his patron because he recognized the quality of the work he was doing. And that’s sort of how he ended up. If you would ask for a one-phrase description of Rehnquist, I’d say he was a family man.

The night that he was confirmed after this bitter, bitter battle, he went to a basketball game with his kids for his kids. Now, the rest of us went out and had a drink. And breathed the sigh of relief but Bill was dedicated to his family in every way, very down-to-earth, very caring, and very, very loyal in every way.

Jonathan Movroydis: You had mentioned…I’m sorry, go ahead.

Wally Johnson: No, go ahead, go ahead.

Jonathan Movroydis: I was just gonna say, you had mentioned earlier about the call with…the call by John Mitchell, Attorney General Mitchell to you saying that Bill needs a lawyer, that being Bill Rehnquist. Could you take us through your role in his…and through the appointment process, through the confirmation process of associate justice, and how did you personally prep the future Justice Rehnquist?

Wally Johnson: Well, I see we’re actually getting close to the end of this conversation, so I’ll be reasonably brief. Lots of people were involved in preparing Bill and working with Bill. I had a role. My role was to coordinate between the leadership of the Judiciary Committee and the attorney general and the White House legislative office to bring whatever strength we could to support the candidate in the process.

I was running back and forth from the hill reporting to Mr. Mitchell, coordinating with Bill Timmons and Tom Korologos going back to the hill and making sure that everybody who had a vested interest in this process knew what was going on and could contribute. Now, as it turned out, I also was in touch with Mr. Nixon who was not a hands-off kind of a guy.

I had met him because when I worked up on Capitol Hill, David Eisenhower, his son-in-law, was my intern. And so back in, I think, ’69, ’68, I got to know Dave and Julie quite well. And so when Mr. Nixon wanted a direct report, I didn’t call him but he would call me and confirm. Now, I was listening, I wasn’t telling him, but I was also…I was telling him in the sense that I was telling him what was going on.

And it all became a question of just like you see Chuck Grassley today trying to keep focused on the candidate, and make sure that everybody understood his strong characteristics, same deal back then without the people in the back of the room yelling. And it was easier because there was a civility in the Senate then that doesn’t seem to exist today.

Jonathan Movroydis: How did the… Rehnquist you said was considered a more controversial nominee than Lewis Powell and you had mentioned earlier kind of tying them together and having Rehnquist kind of run fullback on the Powell nomination. How did the legal community and the press react to the nomination process of Rehnquist?

Wally Johnson: No one really knew him. Now, he became well-known but the fact is if you were to have a media meter, a media meter on Lewis Powell, the legal community would 95% know Lewis and 40% know Bill. Why? Part of it was age and part of it was the involvement in the general community. Bill had the highest rankings, he was brilliant, but the world didn’t know him. So as the nominations proceeded, the Senate Judiciary Committee insisted on processing Rehnquist before they process Powell.

Well, we had this massive support behind Powell that pushed Bill through the process. And I have to thank Chairman Eastland and Roman Hruska for that. They are the ones that made that happen. They resisted the pressure to take up Powell first, and the same on the Senate floor.

We avoided all of the legislative devices that, in my mind, still make the Senate great, made the Senate great, as a body of deliberation because there was so much pressure to move Lewis Powell forward, and they both got confirmed, which of course was exactly what President Nixon was looking for, and exactly what allowed him to say in his memoirs that the…one of his greatest triumphs was having those four Supreme Court nominations confirmed.

We’re running out of time, I know that, but the hearing in the mid-80s which elevated Bill to the Chief Justice position was, again, part of this evolution in the confirmation role of the Senate because it set up the appointment Scalia and Bork. If you’d flip those two appointments, it would have been entirely different in terms of how Bork had been processed, but that could be a subject of another call at another time.

Jonathan Movroydis: Final question, what can Brett Kavanaugh and the Trump ministration learn from the Rehnquist experience?

Wally Johnson: I think that what they have learned from the Rehnquist experience is the importance of preparation. What I’ve been watching Judge Kavanaugh do is fill the evolution of the questions brilliantly. The role of the Senate and of the executive in the finding the not just intellectual qualifications of the judges which almost I have to say, to get on the Supreme Court anymore, you have to be almost certainly an appellate judge. I’d be amazed if anybody was nominated that did not have that kind of background by either party.

But the mirror boards, the preparation, the way in which you briefed every senator, those all came out of the Nixon experience without question. And I can read it as I watched the hearings today. Going back to that time when we were very…when Mr. Nixon was very, very successful in dealing with the court. And so there you have it.

Jonathan Movroydis: Our guest today was Wally Johnson, Associate Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General of the United States during the Nixon administration. Our topic today was his work to successfully shepherd Supreme Court justices Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist through the United States Senate. Wally Johnson, thank you so much for your time.

Wally Johnson: It’s a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Jonathan Movroydis: Please check back for future podcasts at nixonfoundation.org or on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Spotify. This is Jonathan Movroydis, signing off.

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PETE WILSON

Pete Wilson has dedicated more than 30 years to serving the citizens of California, including as Governor of California for two terms (1991 to 1999), eight years as a U.S. senator (1983 to 1991), eleven years as mayor of San Diego (1971 to 1983) and five years as a California state assemblyman (1967 to 1971). He is now a principal in Bingham Consulting Group, based in the firm’s Los Angeles office. He is also of counsel to Bingham McCutchen.

As Governor, he is credited with leading California from the depths of recession to prosperous economic recovery. Insisting on strict budget discipline and rehabilitation of the state’s then-hostile environment toward investment and job creation, Governor Wilson provided for market-based unsubsidized health coverage for employees of small businesses and obtained anti-fraud measures that drove down workers’ compensation premiums by 40 percent.

Governor Wilson also successfully pushed to enactment sweeping welfare reforms, including time limits and work requirements, and historic education reforms, including rigorous curricular standards, class-size reduction, and the replacement of social promotion with early, effective remedial education. He also began new programs of individualized testing of all students, teacher-competency and training, a longer instructional year, and a return to phonics and early mastery of reading, writing and mathematical skills. Governor Wilson led efforts to enact tougher crime measures and signed into law “Three Strikes,” (25 years to life for repeat felons) and “One Strike,” (25 years to life upon the first conviction of aggravated rape or child molestation). He left office with a public approval rating identical to that received by Ronald Reagan at the conclusion of his service as Governor.

After leaving office, he spent two years as a managing director of Pacific Capital Group, a merchant bank based in Los Angeles. He serves as a director of the Irvine Company, U.S. Telepacific Corporation, Inc., National Information Consortium Inc. and IDT Entertainment.

He is the Chairman of the National World War II Museum, and serves on the Board of the Richard Nixon Presidential Foundation, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, and the Donald Bren Foundation and is a founding director of the California Mentor Foundation.

He has received the Woodrow Wilson Institute Award for Distinguished Public Service and the Patriots Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

A lawyer by trade, he graduated from Berkeley School of Law and is a proud U.S. Marine. He worked as an advance man on Richard Nixon’s campaign for Governor of California in 1962.

RONALD H. WALKER

Ronald H. Walker was a senior partner with Korn/Ferry International, the world’s largest executive search firm, for over 20 years. At Korn/Ferry, Mr. Walker’s client base included Fortune 100 companies.

Mr. Walker’s extensive record of government services includes Special Assistant to President Nixon from 1969 to 1972 where he was the first director of the White House Office of Presidential Advance. In this position, he was responsible for planning and coordinating all Presidential travel, domestic and international. Those visits included all 50 states and 25 countries. He personally directed the preparations for the President’s historic trips to the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union.

President Nixon appointed Mr. Walker the 8th Director of the National Park Service in December 1972 where he served until 1975. In this position, he was charged with the preservation and care of the country’s 300 National Park System areas encompassing 300 million acres of land. He administered a budget of $350 million and managed 15,000 employees who serve the 230 million people that visit America’s parklands annually.

Mr. Walker previously served as a consultant to the White House Personnel Office. He has also served as a senior advisor to four Presidents and on Special Diplomatic assignments abroad. In addition, he has served as a senior advisor to nine Republican Conventions, highlighted by his Chairmanship and position of CEO of the 1984 Republican National Convention held in Dallas, Texas. At the request of President Ronald Reagan, he also chaired the 50th Presidential Inauguration.

Mr. Walker has served on numerous Boards, both public and private, including as a public sector member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Richard Nixon Foundation, the Kennedy Center, Vice Chair of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, past chairman of the Freedom’s Foundation at Valley Forge, the National Park Foundation, Grand Teton National Park Foundation, Ford’s Theatre, and Vice Chairman of the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Walker is a distinguished graduate from the University of Arizona with a BA in Government and American History. He also served in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of captain.

Dr. DANIELE STRUPPA

Daniele C. Struppa, Ph.D. is the thirteenth president of Chapman University, effective September 1, 2016. Previously, Dr. Struppa held the position of Chancellor at Chapman University.

Dr. Struppa joined Chapman University in 2006 as provost, responsible for creating and implementing academic priorities for the University and for the allocation of resources to support those priorities. In 2007, with the addition of further leadership responsibilities, he was appointed as Chapman’s first chancellor.

He came to Chapman University from George Mason University, where he served as director of the Center for the Applications of Mathematics, as chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, and as associate dean for graduate studies. In 1997, he was selected dean of George Mason’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Prior to his tenure at George Mason, Dr. Struppa held positions at the University of Milano (Milan, Italy), the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy) and the University of Calabria (Calabria, Italy).

Dr. Struppa earned his laurea in mathematics from the University of Milan, Italy in 1977, and received his doctorate degree in mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1981. In recognition of his work, he has been awarded the Bartolozzi Prize from the Italian Mathematical Union (1981), and the Matsumae Medal from the Matsumae International Foundation of Tokyo (1987).

In 2006, the BIO-IT Coalition (a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., and dedicated to the support of bioinformatics) established a new prize in Dr. Struppa’s honor – the “Professor Daniele Struppa Award” – which is designed to honor high school teachers in math, science and technology.

Dr. Struppa is the author of more than 200 refereed publications, and he is the editor of several volumes. He has edited or co-authored more than ten books. He joined the Richard Nixon Foundation Board in 2019.

J. PETER SIMON

J. Peter Simon co-founded William E. Simon and Sons (WES&S), along with his late father, former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, and his brother, Bill Simon, Jr. in 1988. He currently serves as Co-Chairman of the Firm and its Investment Group and is also Co-Chairman of the William E. Simon Foundation.

Mr. Simon was previously employed by Kidder Peabody in New York City from 1975 to 1988. At Kidder Peabody, he rose to Managing Director in the convertible securities department.

Mr. Simon earned a BA in Psychology from Lafayette College and also attended NYU’s Graduate School of Business.

Currently, Mr. Simon also serves on the Board of Directors of Puck Holdings (NJ Devils), is an appointed member of the New Jersey State Board of Education and is a member of the Board of Trustees at Lafayette College. At Lafayette College he is Chairman of the Endowment Committee and serves on both the Easton Committee and the Student Life Committee. At the University of Rochester he is Chairman of The William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Executive Advisory Committee.

Philanthropically, Mr. Simon donates his time to a broad variety of charitable entities. He is Chairman of the Morristown Memorial Health Foundation Board of Trustees and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Richard Nixon Foundation. At the Richard Nixon Foundation he is also Chairman of the Investment Committee and a member of the Executive/Nominations Committee. Currently he is a member of the Covenant House New Jersey Board of Directors, a member of the New Vernon Cemetery Association, a member of the Board of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, and a provisional member of the Charles Hayden Foundation.

Past philanthropic commitments include the Alliance for School Choice Board of Trustees, serving as Chairman of the Finance Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee. He served on the Gladney Center Board of Trustees, the National Council for Adoption Board of Trustees and the Peck School Board of Trustees. He was also a member of the New Jersey Seeds Advisory Committee and a member of the Teen Ranch Foundation in Ontario, Canada.

Mr. Simon resides in Green Village, NJ with his wife Janet and their four children.

RICHARD (SANDY) QUINN

Richard (Sandy) Quinn was President of the Richard Nixon Foundation from 2010 to 2014. He was an assistant to Richard Nixon traveling with him during his 1962 California gubernatorial bid. He later served on the staff of Governor Ronald Reagan, including as 1967 Inaugural Committee Chairman, and later served as Chief of Staff for U.S. Senator George Murphy in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Quinn was head of marketing for Walt Disney World in Florida through construction, the opening in 1971 and several years of operation, and later joined the Marriott Corp. as a division Vice President.

He was President of Quinn/Brein Marketing & Communications for many years, serving blue chip corporate accounts throughout the United States. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in business.

MAUREEN DROWN NUNN

Maureen Drown Nunn is a teacher, author, speaker, trainer, interpreter, and a mother of five.

Her career has spanned a variety of disciplines, including her current outreach efforts as an interpreter for Doctors Without Borders.

Mrs. Nunn was the host of a television talk show Moments with Maureen, a 30-minute syndicated program that leapt high above standard talk shows to help everyday people overcome everyday challenges, by learning from others who had overcome adversity and succeeded.

Not only is she an experienced television host with over 15 years in the entertainment business, her other successful nationally syndicated show, Everyday Heroes, won a Cable Ace award.

Mrs. Nunn also hosted a weekly Spanish call-in show with Lety Dominguez Bolivar called Comunidad Latina con Maria y Lety, and was awarded three Diamond Awards and a President’s Award. She studied Spanish in school and found that her language skills created opportunities to hurdle cultural barriers and help others to succeed.

Mrs. Nunn managed her career while being a mother and achieved success in both her professional and her family life.

She attended Perdue University and obtained her MA in Spanish/Education from the University of Southern California. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

TOD R. HULLIN

Tod Hullin is senior vice president of Public Policy for The Boeing Company, and a member of the company’s Executive Council. In this position, he leads the company’s worldwide public policy efforts, including all U.S. federal, state and local government liaison operations for Boeing.

Hullin has extensive public policy experience in both the public and private sectors – in the aerospace, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries, as well as in the U.S. government.

He joined Boeing in 2003 and served as the company’s senior communications executive. He has had overall responsibility for public relations, executive and employee communications, advertising and branding, and international communications.

Prior to joining Boeing, Hullin held the senior public policy position at Vivendi Universal. Previously, he had served as the senior global public policy and communications officer for The Seagram Company, Time Warner and SmithKline Beecham. He was vice president of the Interstate General Corporation from 1977 to 1983.

Hullin began his professional career in 1969 in the Nixon administration as a member of the White House staff. He moved to the White House Domestic Council staff in 1971 and to the Domestic Council for Housing and Community Development in 1974.

In 1976 he was appointed the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs. He was the second-ranking executive charged with developing, coordinating, managing and monitoring the worldwide external and internal communications plans for the Department of Defense. In this capacity, he also served as official spokesman at news conferences and briefings.

Hullin graduated from the University of Washington in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in business.

MING HSIEH

Ming Hsieh is Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fulgent Therapeautics.

Prior to founding Fulgent, Mr. Hsieh served as Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of the board of directors of Cogent, Inc., or Cogent, a biometric identification services and products company he co-founded in 1990, which was acquired by 3M in 2010.

Prior to his tenure at Cogent, Mr. Hsieh founded and served as Vice President of AMAX Technology from 1987 to 1990. Mr. Hsieh currently serves on the board of directors of Fortinet, Inc., a network security company traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “FTNT.”

An engineer raised in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Hsieh emigrated from China in 1981. He received a B.S.E.E. from the University of Southern California in 1983 and an M.S.E.E. from USC in 1984, as well as honorary doctoral degrees from USC in 2010 and the University of West Virginia in 2011. He joined the Board of the Richard Nixon Foundation in 2019.

Mr. Hsieh has served as a trustee at USC since 2007 and at Fudan University in China since 2011.

In 2015, Mr. Hsieh was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

LAWRENCE M. HIGBY

Lawrence M. Higby is a corporate executive with over 30 years of experience, including as Chief Executive Officer of Apria Healthcare Group Inc., from 2002 to 2008 and President and Chief Operating Officer from 1997 to 2004.

Prior to Apria, he served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Unocal 76 Products Company and Group Vice President of Unocal Corporation from 1994 to 1997. From 1986 to 1994, he was with Times Mirror Company as Executive Vice President of Marketing of the Los Angeles Times. He was the President and Chief Operating Officer of America’s Pharmacy Inc., (a division of Caremark Inc.).

From 1974 to 1985, he served in executive management positions in sales and marketing at various divisions of PepsiCo, including Vice President of Marketing in North America. Prior to that, he was the Assistant to White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman in the Nixon administration from 1969 to 1973.

Mr. Higby served as Chairman of the New Majority California, and served as Chairman of the Orange County chapter. He also serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards, including as the former Chairman of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, a Director of the Automobile Club of Southern California, a Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center and a Board Member of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Chair of the Nominations and Compensation Committees.

Mr. Higby holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science of the University of California, Los Angeles and also attended the University of California’s Graduate School of Business. He is a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award.

Hugh Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt is a tenured Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, a columnist for The Washington Post and host of the nationally syndicated show on the Salem Radio Network, The Hugh Hewitt Show. He was a panelist on four CNN Republican Primary Debates in 2016 and is a frequent panelist on NBC’s Meet the Press. He is President, CEO and General Counsel of the Richard Nixon Foundation.

Hewitt graduated cum laude with a BA in Government from Harvard in 1978. After leaving Harvard, he worked first for David Eisenhower, then for former President Richard Nixon, as a researcher and writer in San Clemente, California and New York. During this time, he worked on President Nixon’s books The Real War and Leaders. At President Nixon’s urging, Hugh attended the University of Michigan School of Law where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif and graduated magna cum laude in 1983.

Hewitt clerked for Judges Roger Robb and George MacKinnon on the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1983-84. He served President Ronald Reagan as Deputy Director and General Counsel of the Office of Personnel Management, General Counsel for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and as Assistant White House Counsel and Special Assistant to the Attorney General. In 1989, he returned to California at President Nixon’s request to oversee the Nixon Library project from groundbreaking through Grand Opening on July 19, 1990.

Hewitt is the author of a dozen books, including two New York Times best-sellers.